Johannes Cabal: The Fear Institute

human speech, although it was as convincing a rendition as a dog saying, ‘Sausages.’

‘Ship . . . impounded . . . by authority of . . . impounded . . .’ It swung its head from side to side, a poor impersonation of a man looking around. Cabal’s misgivings deepened: however the guard was sensing them, it was not through eyes.

‘Ye’ll step off my ship, sir!’ demanded Oleander. He carried a polished falchion that Cabal had assumed uncharitably was for show. Now drawn and glinting in the weak sunlight, it looked far more like a device for creative hacking.

‘Ship impounded . . . order of . . . council . . . Dylath-Leen . . .’ Without allowing even the shortest moment for a reply, it launched into the attack.

Oleander met the slashing blow with a fast parry of his falchion that struck sparks. He thrust the guard’s sword arm to one side and shoved it back with his free hand to gain a little space. Cabal, meanwhile, was weighing up the wider situation. All along the dock, the other manned ships were trying to cut loose while their crews engaged the wave of bestial guards. A swift glance over his shoulder showed that the three galleys were close by the mole and all had their tillers hard over, swinging across to block the harbour mouth. Then, to add to his rapidly populating list of concerns, he saw that some of the black galleys already in dock were moving out to engage the ships that had managed to cast off. They were in a rat trap and, his mind whirling through alternative plans, Cabal could see no way out of it. Then he noticed the second guard who had jumped, painfully hauling itself on to the rail, and noted with satisfaction that there was at least one small victory he could achieve.

‘Corde! Help the captain, you idiot!’ he shouted, as he ran for the second guard. ‘You don’t need to be invited!’

Corde, who at some deep and very English level was indeed waiting for an invitation to fight – a slap with a gauntlet or a strongly worded note, perhaps – shuddered into action. He ran forward and stood shoulder to shoulder with Oleander, jumping around a bit as if preparing to receive a serve in a friendly game of tennis. ‘Get behind it!’ said Oleander, angrily, as Corde ate into his room for manoeuvre. ‘Stab it in the back!’

While Corde wrestled with his sense of fair play, Cabal had reached the rail at a charge. The second guard had just got its head above it when it found a rapier waiting for it. Cabal struck hard and precisely, the tip of the blade going neatly through the left eye of the guard’s helmet. Cabal doubted he could blind it, but hoped it had something precious to it stored inside its head; a brain would be lovely, but an important nerve ganglion would suffice.

The guard made a sloppy wet noise as the blade went in, but Cabal could not tell if it was the sound of important flesh being parted or a vocalisation in whatever slithy collection of dripping, slobbering and burbling sounds it pleased the guard to regard as its native language. Then the guard shook its head angrily, as if getting a length of steel through the eye was a mild irritation on par with a snapped shoelace. Cabal realised that more robust measures than merely stabbing it through the head would be necessary.

The guard managed to get both hands on the rail and said something that sounded like a blocked sink clearing, yet still maintained the tonal je ne sais quoi that allows one with decent linguistic skills – and Cabal’s were more than decent – to know that a frightful insult has just been uttered. Cabal did not tolerate insult, especially from burbling things that refused to die easily. Lying near at hand was a discarded axe that had been used mere minutes ago to part the hawsers. Cabal left his rapier in the guard’s eye, took up the axe and severed the guard’s wrists with two well-placed blows ’twixt gauntlet and bracer. The guard made a new bubbling sound, this time denoting surprise, and fell backwards. Cabal snatched his rapier from where he’d left it parked in the guard’s head, and favoured the falling creature with a humourless smile as it vanished from sight, hitting the water a moment later.

On the deck, the two orphaned hands started to crawl away, presumably looking for a hiding place where they could plot their revenge. Cabal picked them up by the lames across the gauntlet backs as if handling particularly feisty crabs, and tossed them into the harbour. They could do their plotting in the mud, as far as he was concerned.

‘It won’t die!’ Corde’s shout, generously scented with more panic than rational concern, drew Cabal’s attention. Oleander was barely holding his own in a vicious exchange of blows with the first guard, while Corde stabbed it repeatedly in the back with the enthusiasm of a masochist poking a wasps’ nest. Cabal returned his rapier to its scabbard, recovered the axe from where he had left it embedded in the rail with a pool of whey-like blood around it, and went to assist.

‘You fail to employ the scientific method, Herr Corde,’ he said, as he approached. ‘After sufficient experiments to confirm your initial observation – in this case, that stabbing is an ineffective strategy – one should move on to new hypotheses. This creature is concentrating entirely upon the captain, perhaps because his falchion is a slashing weapon. Does the creature regard being slashed as more deleterious to its general operation than being stabbed? Let us experiment.’ So saying, he used the end of the axe to tip the guard’s helmet forward a little, exposing flesh with the colour, consistency and wet texture of fresh blancmange. Then he drew back the axe and decapitated the guard.

The guard was definitely surprised. Not killed, or apparently wounded to any significant degree, but certainly surprised. It turned to Cabal, the space over its neck giving every intimation of being very surprised.

‘There,’ said Cabal, pleased. It was always gratifying to see a hypothesis verified. It was less gratifying to have a headless and angry monstrosity bear down on one when its sword has twice the reach of one’s axe. ‘Some assistance here?’ asked Cabal, as he backed quickly away.

Oleander needed no second prompting. Aiming at the top of the shoulder as the guard turned away from him, he swung the falchion with great force. The links in the mail separated easily – apparently such work went to the lowest bidders even in the Dreamlands – and the blade almost reached the armpit before running out of energy. The guard’s right arm flopped down, boneless and skinless, less grown than extruded. Oleander pursed his lips, like an artist considering where to make the next brush stroke, and hacked at the thin sliver holding the arm on. It fell, the sword clattering free. After a moment, the hand started to drag the arm off behind it as it sought shelter.

Oleander and Cabal laid into the defenceless hulk of the guard, smashing it down with heavy blows until it toppled, then pounding its form until pale liquescent filth flowed from the ragged sleeve and the neck of the mail bernie, and the armour sank until it was empty.

‘What . . . what was that?’ said Corde, his eyes wide and wild. ‘What sort of creature?’

‘Something cheap and expendable,’ said Cabal, but his attention was elsewhere. The trap was still closing. The fight on the Audaine’s deck had taken only seconds, and the crew who had moved to help were already back at their stations, trying to escape the wave of galleys that was nearing them. It was plainly a hopeless endeavour, however: the oars of the galleys swept mechanically and relentlessly, while the Audaine could make little steerage with her sails furled, despite the crew’s hard sculling.

It was for the captain to call, and he stood watching the oncoming galleys as he considered the options.